The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced exponential growth. Technological advances in IC materials and designs have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. As the semiconductor IC industry has progressed into nanometer process nodes in pursuit of higher device density, higher performance, and lower costs, challenges from both fabrication and design issues have resulted in the development of three-dimensional designs, such as a Fin Field Effect Transistor (FinFET).
FinFET devices typically include semiconductor fins with high aspect ratios and in the fin channel and source/drain regions are formed. A gate structure is formed over and along the sides of the fin (e.g., wrapping) utilizing the advantage of the increased surface area of the channel to produce faster, more reliable, and better-controlled semiconductor transistor devices. However, since device feature sizes continue to decrease, fabrication processes continue to become more difficult to perform. There are still various challenges in the fabrication of FinFET devices.